“Transparent! Harmless!” repeated Charlie. “You must excuse me if I say I think you do the lady’s talents great injustice. Not that I have any personal knowledge of the matter, however: and if I were to repeat the current reports, Miss Elliott would call them gossip and repudiate them, and me too, perhaps. She has the reputation of having the ‘wisdom of the serpent;’ the slyness of the cat, I think.”
They all laughed, for Charlie had warmed as he went on.
“I am sure it must be very uncomfortable to have anything to do with such a person,” said Rose. “I should feel as though I must be always on the watch for something unexpected.”
“To be always on the watch for something unexpected, would be rather uncomfortable—‘for a continuance,’ as Janet would say. But I don’t see the necessity of that with Mrs Grove. I think it must be rather agreeable to have everything arranged for one, with no trouble. You should hear Miss Fanny, when in some difficult conjunction of circumstances—she resigns herself to superior guidance. ‘Mamma will manage it.’ Certainly she does manage some difficult matters.”
There was the faintest echo of mimicry in Arthur’s tone, as he repeated Miss Fanny’s words, which Graeme was quite ashamed of being glad to hear.
“It was very stupid of me, to be sure! Such folly to suppose that Arthur would fall into that shallow woman’s snares. No; Arthur’s wife must be a very different woman from pretty little Fanny Grove. I wish I knew anyone good enough and lovely enough for him. But there is no haste about it. Ah, me! Changes will come soon enough, we need not seek to hasten them. And yet, we need not fear them whatever they may be. I am very sure of that. But I am very glad that there is no harm done.”
And yet, the harm that Graeme so much dreaded, was done before three months were over. Before that time she had it from Arthur’s own lips, that he had engaged himself to Fanny Grove; one who, to his sisters, seemed altogether unworthy of him. She never quite knew how to receive his announcement, but she was conscious at the time of feeling thankful; and she was ever afterwards thankful, that she had not heard it a day sooner, to mar the pleasure of the last few hours of Norman’s stay.
For Norman came with his bride even sooner than they had expected. Graeme was not disappointed in her new sister, and that is saying much, for her expectations had been highly raised. She had expected to find her an intellectual and self-reliant woman, but she had not expected to see so charming and lovable a little lady. They all loved her dearly from the very first; and Graeme satisfied Norman by her unfeigned delight in her new sister, who was frank, and natural and childlike, and yet so amiable and wise as well.
And Graeme rejoiced over Norman even more than over Hilda. He was just what she had always hoped he might become. Contact with the world had not spoiled him. He was the same Norman; perhaps a little graver than he used to be in the old times, but in all things true, and frank, and earnest, as the Merleville school-boy had been.
How they lived over those old times! There was sadness in the pleasure, for Norman had never seen the two graves in that quiet church-yard; and the names of the dead were spoken softly. But the bitterness of their grief had long been past, and they could speak cheerfully and hopefully now.